As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen • Hacker News Board

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

#371

Post by lolinder » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #171

lolinder wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eschatology doesn't just have to do with the end times. It is "concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul". Hinduism and Buddhism clearly address this. Confucianism and Shinto may be exceptions, and of course there are plenty others that I'm not familiar with, but eschatology is far from being only a preoccupation of Western religions.

Dropping the end of that quote completely changes the meaning it’s. "the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind" It’s a separate idea from simple questions of the afterlife. Buddhism is really interesting here because there was such a wide range of different beliefs involved some of which fit that idea and others don’t. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhis…

It doesn't completely change the meaning, it drops a subset of the meaning. Eschatology encompasses both types of ends. The OP seemed under the impression it only involved the end of the universe/world.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by shsbdncudx » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

tonymet wrote: post #93

Becoming more religious has helped me identify religious tendencies in the secular world. Ideology doesn’t imply supernatural deities, and some worldly phenomenon can be elevated to a supernatural level. Secular belief contains rituals, origin stories, deities, saints, priesthood, blasphemy, vice & virtue just as religion does. One aspect of religion I appreciate is that these aspects are well codified and debated –…

One of successes of religious text like the bible is how skilfully it leverages our ancient psychological needs.

I don’t think it’s purely a semantic argument though, religion is predicated on the supernatural whereas ideology isn’t.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by unishark » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

kevstermcgee wrote: post #181

tonymet wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the secular world has many different people agreed and the world would be more navigable if they adopted distinct names, garb & beliefs the way the other religions did. If you think about it, every thanksgiving debate was really a religious debate among people who didn’t clarify their membership.

> agreed and the world would be more navigable if they adopted distinct names, garb & beliefs the way the other religions did. Athiesm is to religion what not collecting stamps is to a hobby. We aren't the ones creating an imagined reality. We're just saying until there's substantive evidence to support the existence of a deity we probably shouldn't assume one exists.

> Athiesm is to religion what not collecting stamps is to a hobby.

I believe the point of the article and discussion is the particular atheists "collecting stamps" with more ideological ferver than the hobbyists.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by hellotomyrars » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #204

pdonis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you don’t have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular ideology that you have adopted. Not all secular beliefs are ideologies. I think there are two key common factors between religious beliefs and ideologies that call themselves "secular": First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them,…

> First, people don't acquire the beliefs by considering and weighing evidence; they acquire them by being told them, usually at a young age, by people they trust, and making them part of their identity. That's why people are so resistant to changing such beliefs. Second, the set of beliefs acquired in this way is not just a few isolated ones, but a whole network of beliefs that cover every aspect of life and are all…

A layperson doesn't need to be able to reproduce mathematical proofs to understand something that is obvious and material in front of them that is explained by the proof.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by blackearl » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

tonymet wrote: post #93

Becoming more religious has helped me identify religious tendencies in the secular world. Ideology doesn’t imply supernatural deities, and some worldly phenomenon can be elevated to a supernatural level. Secular belief contains rituals, origin stories, deities, saints, priesthood, blasphemy, vice & virtue just as religion does. One aspect of religion I appreciate is that these aspects are well codified and debated –…

> If you believe you are not religious, it just means that you don’t have the cognitive tools to recognize the secular ideology that you have adopted.

Hubris is a sin. I'm sure someone with your sharp cognitive tools can recognize that.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by andrepd » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

tonymet wrote: post #93

Becoming more religious has helped me identify religious tendencies in the secular world. Ideology doesn’t imply supernatural deities, and some worldly phenomenon can be elevated to a supernatural level. Secular belief contains rituals, origin stories, deities, saints, priesthood, blasphemy, vice & virtue just as religion does. One aspect of religion I appreciate is that these aspects are well codified and debated –…

Christians, Muslims, etc, cannot even agree among themselves what their "belief system" is! I think you're overestimating how well-defined people's religious beliefs are, especially the average person's.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by eightysixfour » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

deertick1 wrote: post #223

rootusrootus wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me an example or two to clarify? Many things might not be well known to someone, but could be if they wanted to track down that information. That's a little different than something which has to be taken on faith by everyone .

Well the scientific method is fundamentally faith based in that we assume that there are immutable properties of thebuniverse that can be discovered and that our perception allows us to interrogate these properties. Yes this is a very well corroborated claim, but fundamentally faith based nonetheless.

> Yes, this is a very well corroborated claim, but fundamentally faith based nonetheless.

This is a really weird statement to me - what is the definition of faith that you are working from?

As someone who grew up in an evangelical environment, "faith" was the belief in God and his plans ("Have faith this will work out, God would only give you what you can handle." type of thing). Outside of that context I've generally understand it to mean "believing without evidence."

A well corroborated claim is the opposite of lacking in evidence and does not require belief in God. This sounds like you are conflating "belief" and "faith," which are not the same. I believe the sun is coming up tomorrow because the preponderance of evidence says it will, that does not require faith.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by andrepd » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

testplzignore wrote: post #339

tonymet wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atheism is actually polytheistic. The Gods can be identified by answering these questions: “why am I here?”, “who am i?”, “what should I do?”, “what is true?”, “why should I suffer & die?”, “what will happen tomorrow?”, “who matters more: myself or others?”. The deities of the secular religion would be “the self”, your parents, “the government/state and its figureheads“ , money (and the institutions controlling it),…

Just because I bathe myself in sheep's blood every time the Federal Reserve changes interest rates doesn't mean I think they are a god.

Infidel! Everyone knows you're supposed to perform ritual sacrifice at the next full moon, not bathe in sheep's blood.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by hellotomyrars » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

pengstrom wrote: post #353

deertick1 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the scientific method is fundamentally faith based in that we assume that there are immutable properties of thebuniverse that can be discovered and that our perception allows us to interrogate these properties. Yes this is a very well corroborated claim, but fundamentally faith based nonetheless.

It's a little more insidious than that. The great majority of people will never personally replicate a finding. They will depend entirely on the honesty of/faith in the entire chain between scientist and messanger. it just turns out it mostly works.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good?

Also the subject matter is in many cases very different, and even if someone doesn't understand the science behind something they can observe and see a tangible result.

Re: As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen

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Post by beaconstudios » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:54 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #343

beaconstudios wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that telos is about the final configuration of something, the outcome of it, as well as its goals in the human sense, and that these two ideas are covered by the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic telos. Extrinsic telos, as in human purposive use, isn't what I was talking about - I meant intrinsic telos, the settled state that a system will reach if left to its own devices. If you leave rain to i…

I refer you to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telos "Telos [refers] to the full potential or inherent purpose or objective of a person or thing,[2] similar to the notion of an 'end goal' or 'raison d'être'. Telos is the root of the modern term teleology, the study of purposiveness or of objects with a view to their aims, purposes, or intentions." Puddles don't have aims, purposes, or intentions.

From the teleological viewpoint, the purpose of rain is to become a puddle - or soak into the soil, or rejoin the oceans, etc etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology

> (from τέλος, telos, 'end', 'aim', or 'goal,' and λόγος, logos, 'explanation' or 'reason')[1] or finality[2][3] is a reason or explanation for something as a function of its end, purpose, or goal, as opposed to as a function of, say, its cause.

> Natural teleology, common in classical philosophy, though controversial today,[5] contends that natural entities also have intrinsic purposes, irrespective of human use or opinion. For instance, Aristotle claimed that an acorn's intrinsic telos is to become a fully grown oak tree.

That's the angle I'm coming from. Especially this part, given my introduction to teleology was through learning about systems theory:

> An example of the reintroduction of teleology into modern language is the notion of an attractor.